by Elisa Hansen
“You’ll never get there at all if you die.”
“You said the vampire didn’t even know I was with you. Why would he follow you? And how? Vampires can’t drive in the day.” Scott smacked his gun against his hand. “We should have taken the other highway. There would’ve been fuel. It’s over two and a half thousand miles to New York, you know. That’s over a hundred gallons of fuel, or how many hours of charging we can’t afford to wait? Why would he follow you anyway? You’re just a robot, what would he want with you?”
“Well,” said a voice behind them, “perhaps she got to know me better than I thought.”
Scott spun around and aimed his shotgun. Carol did the same with her laser.
A vampire stood in the center of the rock room. It had to be a vampire. Scott knew they were pale, but he never realized how pale. Its face seemed made of soft clay, like if Scott punched it, his fist would sink right in. And so weirdly smooth. It looked about Scott’s age, but even Scott had smile lines. And its hair was too light, that platinum non-color Scott’s hadn’t been since he was a little kid. The heavy calf-length coat it wore despite the desert heat provided another dead giveaway. It made Scott think of those military Navy coats with shoulder straps and two rows of buttons. Underneath, a collared shirt tucked into pleated pants, like it was ready for a business meeting or something. Who the heck bothered dressing that way anymore? Not any human.
The vampire tilted its head and lifted its eyebrows. It pulled its gaze from the weapons and smiled. “Hello, Carol. And hel-lo Carol’s human.” As its eyes settled on Scott, its smile grew fangier.
Scott clenched his teeth. Ew. It studied him as if it could see straight through his clothes.
“Leave.” Carol’s volume was low but her tone firm.
“You didn’t tell me you had one.” The vampire’s eyes roved over every inch of Scott. “Though I thought you smelled too good to be true. And isn’t he a beauty?”
That’s it. Scott pumped his shotgun.
“Be judicious with your ammunition,” Carol said. “He’s fast.”
“All vampires are fast.” The training videos Scott watched at Curisa flashed through his brain. He kept his aim steady through the gun’s sight.
The vampire smiled. “What’s your name, beautiful? Did Carol tell you about me?”
“Don’t answer him,” Carol said.
“Oh, let him talk, Carol. Perhaps he wants to.” The vampire folded his arms so his hands settled in plain view on his coat sleeves. He pursed his lips at Carol, then looked back to Scott. “You can call me Leif.”
“I’ll call you dead,” Scott said.
Leif blinked twice, then laughed. “Come now. You’re too pretty for cliché one-liners. Perhaps I can help you.”
“We don’t want your help.”
“What happened to your hand?” Leif’s face tilted, and he sniffed the air. His pale eyes glinted as they fixed on the bloody streak Scott had just wiped on his jeans.
“Carol,” Scott said. Do something.
“What was that you were saying about New York?” Leif asked. “Is that where you’re heading, Carol? Got a way into Manhattan, do you?”
“Carol.” Get me the hell out of here.
Leif dropped his hands and took a step.
Carol leapt in front of Scott and shoved him against the rock wall. He jerked up his shotgun to keep it from hitting her, and her laser blasted. The blue flash dazzled him, but he blinked the spots away. Over Carol’s shoulder, he saw the scorch mark in the rocks. The vampire stood two feet to the left of his previous spot.
“Carol,” Leif said, his tone a perfect imitation of Scott’s.
Scott pushed from the wall and aimed again.
“I’m not going to let you get to him,” Carol told Leif.
He shook his head and actually pouted. “Really. And I thought we were friends.”
“Friends?” Scott gaped at Carol.
The vampire’s freaky ice eyes fixed on Scott’s, and the lineless smile crept back across his features. “He might like me too if he got to know me.”
“No,” Carol said.
“Wait, you like him?”
“No,” Carol said, and Leif laughed again.
“What are you going to do in Manhattan?” He tapped his fingertips against his white lips as he looked back and forth between them. “Oh, what was that you were saying last night?”
Carol shot at the ground right in front of his feet. As Leif took a nimble step back, she elbowed Scott’s gun so it tipped up. He started to protest, to tell her to blow Leif’s face off already, but then he saw what she intended. A thin slab supporting a pile of boulders jutted from the rock wall over Leif’s head. Yes! Bury him! She fired at the ground again, and Scott refocused his aim on the slab.
Leif looked from Carol to Scott, then tilted his head back. His lip curled when he saw the rocks, and he put his hands up. “Really?” He retreated a foot more as her blast splattered dust over his stupid shiny shoes. “This is hardly necessary.”
She crossed to him, her gun aimed between his eyes. Yeah! Scott stepped up behind her.
Leif kept his lips pressed, but then his gaze swept Scott’s face as if admiring a work of art. “It’s a long way to New York. You must be the only human around for miles.”
“The last one you’re going to see,” Scott snapped.
Leif rolled his eyes again and looked up the length of Carol’s arm at her. “Does he always talk like—” He froze. His eyes widened, fixed on a point above the wall behind her.
A chill shot down Scott’s spine and coagulated deep in his guts. He tried to hold the shotgun steady, but clamminess erupted over his hands worse than before.
Carol scowled. “Do you think I’m going to fall for that?” Her eyes darkened, and she pushed her gun against the vampire’s forehead, her hand almost on his nose.
He blew at her fingers and tilted his head to the side to see around her. His lips parted, and his pupils dilated.
Carol’s eyes flashed. After a moment, she said, “Scott, is there something behind me?”
Scott stumbled. He tried to swallow, but his throat refused to work. As his boots slid over the ground, the sand under his heels rattled into his brain. The muscles in his neck locked, changed to steel, but he forced them to turn so he could look over his shoulder.
“Yes,” he answered Carol in a ragged whisper.
“Shoot it?”
Scott’s slippery fingers would not move. Atop the rocks stood the robed figure from the valley. And it was still staring at him. Now Scott could see the white hands at its sides were made of nothing but bone, and the facelessness inside its hood took the shape of a skull. Points of cold, glow-in-the-dark-colored fire pierced from the eye sockets. In a moment that lasted a lifetime, Scott understood that, across the smallest of distances, he was staring into the face of Death. His gun dropped to his side.
Carol spun around and fired. The blasts disappeared into the black cloak like puffs of air. Carol grabbed Scott and shoved him behind her.
Scott gasped as he bumped sides with the vampire. So cold! Carol’s grip on him tightened, and she started to yank him out again, but then the space next to him emptied. He caught a blur in the corner of his eye as the vampire disappeared through the fissure in the rock walls.
Carol released Scott and shielded him with her body, her gun aimed at the figure on the ledge.
She waited, but when nothing happened, she whispered over her shoulder to Scott, “What is he?”
Scott’s voice departed. He shook his head, clenched his jaw. He pushed at the tension in his stomach and willed his fingers to cooperate enough to get his grip back on his gun.
“Do you think you can make it through those rocks?” Carol asked.
The way the vampire ran? He shook his head. He could not look away from the dark figure. The clouds parted in the sky behind it, and moonlight broke through to cast its shadow—Death’s shadow—over the space below. Although the rock room s
heltered Scott and Carol from the wind, up there it tossed the black cloak in amorphous billows.
Carol fired again, but the figure did not seem to notice. It did nothing at all until she shifted where she stood in front of Scott. Then, it moved a step to the side so that it could keep Scott in its line of sight.
“What does he want?” Carol adjusted her aim to the sandy rocks right below it.
“I don’t know,” Scott croaked between breaths as his heart pounded in his brain. “My soul?”
Death spoke. “You are going to Manhattan.”
Scott gasped. Carol clicked and pressed against him. His backpack ground into the wall, and the binoculars gouged his stomach, but he did not protest.
After a moment of silence, Death shifted his fire eyes to Carol and spoke again. “Is that not so?”
“Who are you?” she demanded.
Scott put his hands on the back of her shoulders, his gun caught between them. He started to answer her question, but the word died on his lips.
Death met his eyes again. “Yes.”
Carol glanced over her shoulder, then back up. She shook her head. “What do you want?”
“Tell me your purpose in Manhattan.”
Scott bit hard into his lip, but then sucked in his breath and squeezed out from behind Carol. He gripped his shotgun in both hands but didn’t bother aiming it.
He wasn’t dead yet. Maybe he could bargain. “Why do you want to know?” His voice came out creaky.
Death’s fiery eyes fixed on him again, and Scott lost all of his breath. A moment passed, Death’s fingers tapping against his side. “Is it a good purpose?”
“Yes!” Scott gasped. Carol put her hand on his arm, but he stayed put. “People I care about are there. I only want to be with them. I swear. Everything about it is goodness and innocence and love.”
Carol shot him a bemused look.
“It’s judgment day,” he whispered to her.
“Not yet,” said Death. His voice resounded like something from the deepest pits of the ocean.
Carol squeezed Scott’s arm, and he let out a hiss of pain.
“What is about to happen in Manhattan?” Death asked.
Happen? What was that supposed to mean? Scott started to shake his head, but he froze when something scuttled over the rocks at Death’s side.
“Zombie!” Scott shouted.
Carol released him and fired at it. Scott’s shots exploded a moment after hers.
Death sidestepped in front of the zombie so fast none of their fire hit it, but Scott sure as hell wasn’t going to stop shooting. He reloaded as Carol blasted again and again. He was about to fire when a voice cried from behind Death, “Stop!”
Scott paused, and Carol moved to the side to get a better angle.
“Wait,” the voice called again. A lady voice.
“Hold on,” Scott said to Carol. She nodded but kept her aim.
“I know it looks bad,” said the voice, “but it’s not what you think.”
“You’re not a zombie?” Scott asked. Because from what he saw, she sure looked like a zombie. He pretended to ignore Death’s soul-piercing stare and craned to see around him.
Carol hesitated. “She doesn’t sound like a zombie.”
“She speaks,” said Death.
“Yeah,” said the voice. “I speak. All I want to do is speak. Just listen to me a minute, please? My name is Emily.”
Carol shook her head, but Scott frowned and lifted his face from the shotgun’s sight. “Step out where I can see you.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
Death turned his head to speak over his shoulder. His faint voice echoed like a peaceful nightmare. “I will not let them shoot you.”
After a moment of shuffling, the so-called Emily edged into the murky moonlight, her hands in the air. Despite the telltale lank hair and gray skin with its look of one giant faded bruise, her movements were fluid. Dark shadows ringed her sunken eyes, but they focused with intellect, with personality.
Zombie? Not zombie? It was too disgusting and real to be any sort of disguise. Was she sick? Was it contagious?
She held a handgun, but she kept it to the side, pointed at the sky.
Carol aimed at her. “Put it down.”
Emily glanced up at Death as if asking his opinion. If he responded to her, Scott couldn’t tell how, but a moment later, she set the gun on the edge of the rocks. She started to speak as she straightened, but a low blast from Carol’s laser cut her off. The gun tumbled into the shadows.
“Hey!”
Carol shook her head, but she retracted her own weapon and waved at Scott to lower his. “All right,” she said. “Speak.”
Emily’s clenched fists trembled at her sides, and her face twisted in anger. She definitely looked like a zombie now. Scott lifted his shotgun again.
The voice of Death broke the silence. “They are going to Manhattan.”
“Maybe,” Scott said with a thick swallow. “Maybe not.” Could Death tell he was lying? Would it be worse if he lied? If Death wasn’t there to kill him, would he change his mind if Scott didn’t give him and his maybe-zombie pet what they wanted?
Emily nodded, and her hands relaxed. She focused on Scott, started to speak, but then addressed Carol instead. “Is Manhattan still secure?”
Carol did not answer.
“Are they still working on a cure there? Does headquarters remain uncompromised? LPI headquarters, I mean.”
“What do you know about the LPI?” Carol asked.
“I’m with them,” said Emily. “You too? If you’re going to Manhattan, let me come with you.”
“What!” Scott’s shock crushed his fear.
“No, I need to get there.” Emily took a step forward. “Look, I know I look like a zombie, but I’m not. This just happened to me last night, and you’re the first person I’ve seen since then. I have to get to headquarters.” She looked to Death, then back down at them. “My name is Emily Campbell, and I’m with the Southland LPI unit. You can have them look me up. Records were pretty thorough back when I joined. I still have ID.” She started unflapping various pockets in her tight cargo pants to root through them.
Scott shot Carol a wary glance. “Did a zombie bite you?”
Emily looked up. “Yes, but—”
“Then you are a zombie.”
She shook her head and lifted her hands. “Look, how are you getting there? Do you have a truck? Do they still send the airships out for pickups?”
“You are not coming with us.”
“I have to get there. Just let me— My unit—” She paused and pressed her hands together. “Look, this is Death. Hi, yes. You probably noticed that already. But he’s not supposed to be like this. Here, I mean. With us. Weird, right? Some serious shit is going down that you can’t…well, I can explain if you’ll listen. But the point is that everyone—everyone is in danger.”
Carol moved back to Scott’s side. “That’s not our concern.” She picked up the fuel can, and her gun surfaced again. She pointed it at Emily as she nudged Scott’s arm. “Let’s go.”
Emily shot to the edge of the rocks. Scott pumped his shotgun and aimed at her. “Don’t.” He backed up with Carol to the gap in the walls.
Emily’s expression twisted, but Death blocked Scott’s view of her once more.
He could hear her scuffling, and he felt Carol pull him out of the rock room, but the sight of Death consumed him. His eyes bored into Scott as if they could taste his soul. The skeletal hands drew something from the cloak. It reminded Scott of his granddad’s old handheld gamer he used to sneak off with during holiday dinners. The memory evaporated when the red glow from its screen lit up the inside of Death’s hood, set ablaze every contour and crevice of the grinning skull. Scott’s blood rushed past his knees.
Carol jerked him around the rocks, and his vision blurred. They were running then. Faster than he could have ever managed on his own. The binoculars pounded against his stomach as
they ran and climbed and ducked and turned all the way back to the car.
19
Manhattan?
Every way Emily twisted, Death blocked her path. He didn’t move in any obvious way, but no direction she attempted allowed her to reach the edge of the rocks. The wind whipped her hair all over her face and made his cloak envelop her repeatedly.
After her third mouthful of fabric, she smacked at the cloth, took a step back, and pushed her snarled hair out of her eyes.
“Ohmygodstop!”
“Hmm?” He didn’t look up from his device, but the wind calmed.
Emily curled her fingers into her scalp, then dropped her hands. Death turned away to walk along the rocks, and she jumped to the brink, straining her ears. But all sounds of the fleeing boy and his robot ceased to be.
Emily kicked a stone into the pit and rounded on Death. “You just—” Something slid under her boot. She glanced down. Shotgun pellets littered the ground.
Why did Death shield her? She wasn’t complaining, of course, but she didn’t get it. She didn’t think she hurt his attempt to get help from his brethren, but her presence definitely hadn’t made anything better. His fury literally thundered when they abandoned him, and now he was playing with his little toy as if none of that mattered.
“What the hell are you doing with that thing?”
He tapped at the screen and the glow changed from red to yellow.
I swear to god. She squinted over the ledge. Her Glock hid down somewhere among the shadows. She kicked at the shot, watched it shower with the dust. Okay, she was glad he shielded her. Even if she didn’t get why he did it. His reasoning shouldn’t matter to her anyway. Getting to New York mattered. “I can’t believe you just let them go.”
“Why?”
“Why? Are you serious?”
Death flipped his device vertical and scrolled.
“That guy’s going to Manhattan." Emily flung a hand in the direction he ran. "He could get me in! Why did you stop me?”
“They would shoot you.” The glow became blue.